The present invention relates to the administration technique capable of administering a device to be administered via the Network.
An example of such an art is found in the prior art for remote monitoring of an image forming apparatus including a copier as a device to be administered. To put it more specifically, a copier and an administration center are connected by a wired or wireless public line. If a trouble has occurred to a copier, it is reported to the administration center from said copier.
Said art allows the administration center to keep track of the status of the copier at all times without the user having to reporting the trouble of a copier to the administration center. This makes it possible to take a quick action in response to the trouble.
In this connection, it would be a great benefit if intensive administration of many copiers can be provided at the administration center. In such a case, if remote rewriting of configuration settings of the copier or execution program, for example, is possible, then maintenance time and expenses will be cut down accordingly. However, the amount of information to be conveyed is limited according to the prior art. Hence, if said intensive administration is to be realized, an information transmission means capable of carrying a great amount of information is indispensable. In response to this demand, there has been a rapid growth of networks such as the Internet in recent years. This allows simultaneous multiple access by packet communications and provides economic advantages as well. To ensure an intensive administration of a great many copiers, use of such a network is preferred.
However, in order to ensure communications security, many of general business corporations configure the firewall server between the intra-company LAN and out-company Internet as a user network in an effort to protect themselves against illegal access from outside. In such cases, the administration center cannot access the in-house copier to read information therefrom (for administration of the copier status).
To resolve this problem, it is theoretically possible to change the setting of the firewall server and to permit access only from the administration center. However, it is impossible in practice to change the firewall server setting only for copier maintenance due to the security and related problems. However, many users do not prefer this idea because security by firewall server will be undermined if access from the administration center is permitted.